


Pride

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:03:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chester's pride gets in the way of far too many things, now-a-days</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride

1.

Chester’s there at the birth. Like a good father should be. Later, Sam call his cell when he’s standing outside chain smoking his way through a packet of cigarettes.

Surrounded by crushed filters and the smell of old smoke he says “Tyler Lee…he’s really tiny.”

Chester wants Sam here. He wants her standing at the doors with him in the cold and telling him everything is okay. His voice trembles, ever-so-slightly, but he won’t tell her he’s scared.

2.

On his birthday he’s standing in front of the mirror with his shirt pulled up to reveal his stomach. He used to be thinner, he thinks. He can remember being able to see his hip bones and when he breathed deeply, heaving a sigh of great boredom at his own birthday party because everything sucks and his friends don’t interest him any more for example, he could see his own ribs poking against his skin.

Now there’s just…flesh.

It’s time for a new tattoo.

3.

He hates it but won’t tell Talinda that when she helps him bathe it. It’s not that he can’t reach, it’s just that she thinks the idea of rubbing his scabby chest with salt water might turn him on.

Chester doesn’t have sex with Talinda any more. Why would he? Right now it’s like fucking a bucket.

He closes his eyes and thinks about Brad.

4.

They’re in the studio, listening to their tracks again and again and trying to decide which ones to cut from the album. Chester hates them all, is sick of hearing is own voice and uses his nicotine addiction as an excuse to escape the room.

Brad follows. Even though he doesn’t smoke any more. Even though, ever since Elisa was diagnosed with lung cancer, he’s been avoiding Chester.

Chester turns to him as he lights up. There’s something in there air…not just the second hand smoke. Holds out the cigarette packet.

Brad takes one.

Lights up.

5.

Some times Chester looks at Tyler and imagines how it would feel to press his pillow over his tiny baby face and then walk through into the master bedroom and strangle Talinda with the garter she bought with his money.

On those days, he meets up with Brad and gets drunk.

6.

Elisa dies that year. Chester is sad, despite himself. He hated that bitch, but that’s probably just because he wanted Brad and she was getting in the way.

He stands next to Brad at the funeral. They’re so close together nobody notices their linked pinkie fingers. He feels like a little kid again, secret promises and hand shakes and, later, beatings from daddy for being a queer.

Talinda holds six-month-old Tyler close to her and cries silently.

Chester thinks she’s faking it, and gives Brad’s pinkie finger a squeeze.

7.

Mike acts as if Elisa’s death upset him but really Chester knows it’s just the fact that the tour had to be put on hold so Brad could pull himself out of the pit of depression he had managed to fall into that upsets him the most.

Chester thinks that Mike doesn’t really give a shit about how Brad is. He tells them he’s been to visit him, but Chester knows he’s lying because he’s been staying with Brad ever since the funeral and Mike hasn’t shown his money-hungry face once.

Talinda calls, sometimes, to ask how they both are.

She loves Chester very much and, if he thought about it hard enough, Chester might find it in himself to love her back.

8.

Sam calls Brad’s asking for Chester. She tells him that Talinda is worried and Tyler misses him and asks why he’s doing this again. She asks, “why are you ruining this marriage, as well?”

Chester hangs up. And Sam never calls back.

9.

Brad has a nightmare. He wakes up, crying and shaking and he won’t calm down. Chester climbs into bed with him and pulls him close. Soothing noises he used to make when Draven was scared of the dark spill from his mouth and soon, Brad falls asleep.

Chester doesn’t fall asleep. He just lies awake and stares at the man in his arms. Brad’s lost weight, and Chester has gained it. Making himself ill crosses his mind momentarily.

But then Brad cuddles closer, and the idea disappears.

10.

They have sex, eventually. After many awkward moments and way too much of Chester’s stubborn inability to swallow his pride and admit that he’s horny, they fuck.

Eventually, Talinda stops calling.

Eventually, Chester stops caring.

Eventually he stops thinking of her at all.


End file.
